Faculty

Aaron Felix Alexander-Bloch, MD, PhD, MPhil

Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Department: Psychiatry

Graduate Group Affiliations

Contact information

Richards Biomedical Research Laboratories, B504
3700 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Publications

Search PubMed for articles

Links
Search PubMed for articles
personal lab website
lab website

Education
AB (Philosophy)
Harvard College, 2006.
MPhil (Computational Biology)
University of Cambridge, 2008.
PhD (Neuroscience)
University of Cambridge, 2013.
MD (Medicine)
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 2015.

Permanent link

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Description of Clinical Expertise

Psychosis

Description of Research Expertise

Dr Alexander-Bloch investigates normal brain development and the altered developmental trajectories that lead to mental illness. As the Director of the Brain-Gene Development Lab, he leads a multi-disciplinary team that uses advanced computational approaches to analyze large-scale imaging, clinical, and genomics data. Their goal is to translate the highly polygenic risk for psychosis and other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders into pathophysiologic mechanisms, to inform therapeutic targets and improve risk assessment. Dr. Alexander-Bloch has a history of pioneering approaches that have become widely used by the broader field. His areas of expertise lie at the intersection of advanced multimodal MRI methods, neurotypical brain maturation, and rare and common genetic variants that confer psychiatric risk.

Selected Publications

Du JN, Tio ES, Bennett DA, Schneider JA, Sevim Bayrak C, Alexander-Bloch A, Zhang B, Felsky D.: Copy number variant scores are associated with cerebrovascular pathology in aging. Mol Psychiatry Jul 2026.

Xin Y, Gardner M, Tustison NJ, Cook P, Gee J, Benitez A, Jensen JH; Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative; Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium; Bethlehem R, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch AF, Chen AA.: ComBat-Predict Enhances Generalizability of Neuroimaging Models to New Sites. Hum Brain Mapp 47: e70546, Jun 2026.

Xu J, Valencia Osorio S, Henry MK, Sotardi S, Wood JN, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch A, Catalano J, Chaiyachati BH.: Subarachnoid space in infancy and early childhood: a systematic review of measurements. Pediatr Radiol Jun 2026.

Forsyth JK, Zhu J, Chavannes AS, Trevorrow ZH, Hyat M, Sievertsen SA, Ferreira-Ianone S, Conomos MP, Nuechterlein KH, Asarnow RF, Green MF, Karlsgodt KH, Perkins DO, Cannon TD, Addington JM, Cadenhead KS, Cornblatt BA, Keshavan MS, Mathalon DH, Stone WS, Tsuang MT, Walker EF, Woods SW, Narr KL, McEwen SC, Schleifer CH, Yee CM, Diehl CK, Guha A, Miller GA, Alexander-Bloch AF, Sha Z, Glessner J, Seidlitz J, Bethlehem RAI, Ophoff RA, Bearden CE.: Association of Fetal Gene Regulatory Gene Deletions With Poor Cognition in Schizophrenia and Community-Based Samples. Am J Psychiatry Jun 2026.

Karandikar S, Sevagamoorthy A, Zimmerman D, D'Aiello R 3rd, Dorfschmidt L, Cyr K, Jung B, Levitis E, Adang LA, Arnold K, Bennett ML, Charsar BA, Dominguez Gonzalez CA, Gavazzi F, Hong P, Orthmann-Murphy JL, Pham ST, Kelley K, Lerner M, Shults J, Thakur N, Vossough A, Waldman AT, White A, Whitehead MT, Emrick L, Fraser J, Van Haren K, Keller S, Fatemi A, Eichler F, Bonkowsky JL; Global Leukodystrophy Initiative Clinical Trials Network Workgroup; Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch AF, Vanderver A.: Normative modeling for quantitative brain MRI phenotyping and biomarker discovery for pediatric leukodystrophies. medRxiv May 2026.

Macedo B, Bagautdinova J, Meisler SL, Cieslak M, Sisk LM, Davatazikos C, Franco AR, Hettwer MD, Keller AS, Kiar G, Luo AC, Mackey AP, Milham MP, Moore TM, Sydnor VJ, Sun KY, Yeh FC, Barzilay R, Fair DA, Shinohara RT, Alexander-Bloch A, Satterthwaite TD.: White matter reflects the childhood exposome. bioRxiv May 2026.

Gardner M, Dorfschmidt L, Zimmerman D, Shanmugan S, Seidlitz J, Bethlehem R, Pritschet L; Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium; Raznahan A, Shinohara RT, Alexander-Bloch A.: Brain charts for neuroanatomical sex differences across the human lifespan. bioRxiv May 2026.

Hillman N, Weinstein SM, Bagautdinova J, Sun KY, Cieslak M, Salo T, Fan Y, Keller AS, Alexander-Bloch AF, Vandekar SN, Raznahan A, Satterthwaite TD, Shou H, Shinohara RT.: Testing for Network Specificity in Brain-Behavior Associations Using Ordinal Dominance Curves. Hum Brain Mapp 47: e70493, Apr 2026.

Zhang X, Vandekar S, Chen AA, Kang K, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch A, Liu J.: MULTI-MODAL AND MULTI-REGION DISTANCE MODEL FOR NEUROIMAGING: APPLICATION TO ABCD STUDY. bioRxiv Jan 2026.

Luo AC, Meisler SL, Sydnor VJ, Alexander-Bloch A, Bagautdinova J, Barch DM, Bassett DS, Davatzikos C, Franco AR, Goldsmith J, Gur RE, Gur RC, Hu F, Jaskir M, Kiar G, Keller AS, Larsen B, Mackey AP, Milham MP, Roalf DR, Shafiei G, Shinohara RT, Somerville LH, Weinstein SM, Yeatman JD, Cieslak M, Rokem A, Satterthwaite TD.: Two axes of white matter development. Nat Commun 17(1): 1957, Jan 2026 Notes: doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-68714-8.